Confidence

Follow Us

Billy Mays was the pitchman on TV commercials who yelled at the camera. An article about him discussed his style:

The hardest part of making a sale is stopping people, whether they’re wandering by a booth or flipping channels. For Billy his volume, energy, hand gestures, and faux authority (“Hi, Billy Mays here for …”) are all tactics to get attention and build excitement.

Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that in a presentation we don’t have to worry about stopping people and getting attention because they’re in the room across the table from us. But don’t confuse having their physical presence with having their actual attention and interest. You always need a strong open to draw focus and build excitement, even if it means setting your hair on fire.

The folks in your audience have a short attention span. After about 30 seconds people start wandering in and out of the speaker’s comments. There are tricks to keep them tuned in for more than that. Eye contacts keeps people more connected. An animated speaker helps. A strong voice also keeps attention longer.

A transition from one point to the next is a great opportunity to bring them back. The transition should not be seamless. Be abrupt. It gets attention.

As you start the transition pause briefly, then, with new energy, or different modulation or different pacing start on the new topic. It’s as if the audience is being treated to a whole new speaker. They’ll be reinvigorated. So will you.

How many times have you heard this? You’re nervous about having to make a presentation and someone tells you to just be yourself.

That’s awful advice. In order to make an impact with an audience you need to speak in a bigger voice. You need to deliver your information in a more theatrical way. You need to work hard on making eye contact with everyone in the room. You need to rehearse. You need to be compact in what you say. You need to be confident and compelling.

If just being yourself includes doing all of those things all of the time — great. If it doesn’t, don’t be yourself. Put on the persona of a confident presenter and knock their socks off.

I can’t tell you how many times people about to make a presentation decide, at the last moment, to change something crucial. Often they change the opening. It happens because a previous speaker gave them a new idea, or just because they had second thoughts.

When you change at the last minute you don’t have a chance to rehearse. No rehearsal means less confidence. And, when you don’t have confidence, the audience can smell it.

Good posture signals to your audience that you want to convey things to them that you are confident to discuss. Good posture for meetings and presentations is not a military posture, which can look anything but relaxed. It’s a prideful posture. Chest out, shoulders slightly back. Head held high. Big smile.

If you’re seated, sit closer to the edge of the seat, lean in towards the table but don’t slouch.

Standing tall and proud is a powerful weapon when you are presenting. The audience reads that posture as belonging to someone who is sure of himself, confident in what he is presenting and immensely passionate. You’re not slumped over. You’re not looking like you just found out your cat will never get into college. You believe in what you are saying.

And the audience buys every word. All this from imitating how Arnold Schwarzenegger stands.

Sometimes speakers are criticized for not having enough “energy” in their presentation. One easy technique to inject more oomph into your talk is to speak in a stronger voice. It’s a human-nature trick. When you speak louder, your face becomes more animated, your posture straightens out, and, your arm and hand movements are more engaging.

Another reason for smiling has to do with your voice. It’s much easier to modulate your voice when you’re smiling. Try the opposite. Put your serious face on and talk. You instantly become monotone. You’ll notice that your face reflects the monotone. No animation. No smile. No nothing.

When presenting at a conference room table, don’t sit at the end of the table. Sit close to the middle. You can be heard better and work the room easier.

When it is your turn to present, sit on the edge of the chair, make sure the chair seat is as high as it will go, then lean in with your arms on the table. Don’t sit back until you are finished with your presentation and have answered every question.

Many people think that the sign of a good speaker is someone who never uses verbal ticks like “ah” and “um”. But, I disagree. The best way to judge a speaker’s impact is if that person conveys a sense of confidence. Audiences are swayed when they believe the speaker is confident. We all have verbal ticks. As long as you don’t have so many that the audience is counting you’re OK.

What really matters is that you look and sound like you believe in what you’re saying. If a few ahs and ums slip in while you’re talking, don’t let it bother you.

There are two common assumptions about making pitches that are sure to get you in trouble. The first is to “just be yourself”. Trust me. Yourself isn’t that great. Effective speakers use business theatrics to help them add energy to their personality.

Second bad assumption. The audience will listen because what I have to say is important. Correction. It’s not what you have to say but how you say it that makes it important. Your audience will judge much of what you say by your body language.

If your desire to improve your presentation skills, then the first step is this:

Resolve not to be your own worst enemy. Don’t tell yourself you can’t present, or that you’re not good in front of people or anything like that. Presenting is like learning any skill. You’ve got to master a few of the basic techniques, practice, get good feedback and you’ll be great.

Go through my tips. Find one that you really need to work on and do it over and over again.

Bottom line: If you can stand up straight, look people in the eye, speak in a big voice and smile, you can be a great presenter.

Invariably someone will come up to you and ask “So, what do you do?” The best elevator speech answers that question as if it were asked “So what do you love about your job?” Phrased that way you’ll answer with great passion and a sparkle in your eye.

Prepare and rehearse. Once you’ve outlined what you want to say in your elevator speech, practice it every time you’re about to go into a speaking or networking situation.

While making a presentation, if someone in the audience asks a question or makes a comment, it important that you listen “actively”. Don’t just stand there motionless. React. Nod your head. Acknowledge you understand to show you are listening intently.

This keeps you in control of the presentation and shows supreme confidence.

You can make a good presentation is you learn a few basic skills. You can do ballroom dancing if someone teaches you some steps. Playing golf requires learning how to stand, how to hold the club, the motion of the backswing and other movements.

If you want to be proficient at something, learn the techniques required to do it correctly. Don’t wing it.

Most people aren’t born great presenters. They can become great by taking lessons and practicing them.

We all get nervous when going into a business pitch and we sometimes paint a picture of the prospects as being stoned faced, ill humored people who hate everyone. That couldn’t be more wrong.

Prospects on the receiving end of a pitch want you to be great. They want you to hit the ball out of the park. Their responsibility is to interview a bunch of companies and pick the one they think will the do the best job. If you’re great, you’ve just made their job real easy.

Not to mention that when you think the prospect hates you, she will. You’ll make sure of that. Think positive.

I video participants when they are presenting. Sometimes they are standing, sometimes seated at a conference room table. Whenever someone sees himself or herself on tape sitting while giving a presentation, the first thing they notice is posture. It’s usually bad. Too relaxed. Too slouching.

Having them sit up straight makes a profound difference in perception. They now look confident and strong.

Typically, when you are in a situation where you would want to roll out some version of your elevator speech, it’s a networking situation. It might be crowded with people and loud with music and noise. It’s not ideal. It’s important to be heard so make good eye contact and speak up. Lean in when you say your name. Then, take a slight pause after you say it.

A presentation I attended recently started with the group leader saying they would take no questions until the end. That announcement would have had a warmer reception if they first sprayed us all with weed killer.

Taking questions as they arise says you are confident in what you are presenting.

Pick one thing* that would make you a more powerful presenter and consciously weave that into your everyday conversations until it takes root.

*For example, stronger eye contact, more inflection in your voice, better posture, smiling, animated facial expressions, more arm and hand movements, pausing for effect, listening with your eyes, speaking in a larger voice, building the takeaway into the very opening, storytelling, more use of metaphors and similes, ending with a call to action, pacing. Pick something already.

Watch the scarecrow at the end of the Wizard of Oz when he receives a diploma and declares “the sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the other side.”

For 80 years audiences believed him because he said it with confidence.

But, he was wrong! The sum of the square roots of two sides of a right triangle is equal to the square root of the hypotenuse.

When a presenter is criticized for not having enough energy, it may have to do with their volume.

When you speak in a stronger voice, you get more energy. Your face is more animated, your posture straightens out, and, your hands and arms move like Bill Clinton. Try it. When you speak softly, your entire posture becomes too relaxed. A bigger voices makes you look more confident.

Most CEOs I know are pretty good speakers. They present well and explain effectively. But, when they work in a team with their staff on a pitch, CEOs sometimes turn into a very real presentation problem….More.

Gestures increase attention and paint a picture for the audience. If you are saying that the effort to do something will be huge, for example, just holding your hands up and far apart underscores your point and is memorable to the audience.

Gestures add energy to your voice and delivery. It’s hard to be monotone and quiet when moving your hands and arms.

I ordered a salad which meant the waiter had to up-sell me to top it with chicken or steak. As he asked – would you like steak tips with that– he shook his head no. Jamaican jerk chicken? Grilled shrimp? Before I could answer he shook his head no each time.

Be aware of subtle body language signs you might be issuing even as your words indicate something different.

In a presentation, making eye contact is one of the most important things you can do. It will help you win business.

Even if using PowerPoint, your eyes should be on the audience, not on the screen. Have a laptop at the podium or on a table so you can refer to it while facing the audience, instead of constantly looking over your shoulder.

But, even with that, it is for reference only. Hopefully, you know your presentation well enough that you don’t have to read it word for word.

The ones that stood out and that were memorable, and that the audience responded to the most, all had one common element. The presenters spoke with passion. You could see it in their body language. You can hear it in their voice.

It’s difficult to coach speakers to be more passionate but if you can help them find what ignites their own passion within their narrative, the presentation will be unforgettable.

When presenting, it’s not always necessary to be confident, but crucial to appear confident.

We think that the audience evaluates us on the content of our words and slides, but they really decide for or against on body language. If you look confident, they will buy whatever you are advocating.

-Research says that when a speaker uses animated hand motions, the audience is much more likely to get the gist of what he is saying.
-Hands also gives the speaker more energy and confidence.
-Our voice tends to be flatter and less interesting when not using hands.
-A Harvard study says that when a speaker itemizes things on his fingers (I have 3 things to reiterate…) the speaker is seen as being charismatic.